Merry Christmas

I found this tree on Breaking The Silence this is the easiest tree I ever put up :-) Click below to leave me a Christmas present.

Food For Thought

Recently, on Larry King Live, Larry did an interview with a death row inmate named Damien Echols. Fifteen years ago, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley were convicted of the murder of three Arkansas boys. At the time of their arrest Damien was 18, Jason was 16 and Jessie was 18. They were not convicted on any physical evidence basically; they were all convicted on the confession of 18 year old Jessie Misskelley and satanic panic (the three were fans of the rock band Metallica).

You may be wondering what this has to do with a personal medical blog? Well, there are a few reasons why I am posting this. Jessie Misskelley, the boy who confessed to the crime, is mentally challenged has an IQ of around 72. Anything below 70 is considered mentally retarded. As readers of my blog may know, I have a child with Autism. Anyone familiar with Autism knows that you don’t get an accurate IQ with people with autism no matter how functioning the autistic. My child has an IQ test around 74 and is quite verbal and high functioning. Yet, several years ago we were watching a movie and eating popcorn and Twizzlers. When we ran out of the Twizzlers, my oldest child (jokingly) asked my autistic child “why did you eat all of the Twizzlers?” His reply was “I didn’t mean to.” This was a child just trying to give his sister an answer to a question. Many mentally challenged people have been wrongfully convicted on their own confessions.

If you are not familiar with this case “The West Memphis Three” it is very interesting. I first learned of the case several years ago from watching the HBO documentary Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills. The first time that my husband and I watched the movie, we caught it in the middle and thought that it was a “docudrama.” The story was so off the wall, we thought that for sure that it had to have been made up. At the end of the movie, we hit the info button on the remote to find out the name of the movie and when it was on again to watch the entire movie. To our surprise, it was a documentary and not a docudrama. After only watching the second half of the movie, we were convinced that Damien, Jason and Jessie did not commit the murders and could not have committed them. When we watched the entire movie, we were just incensed in the injustice and left thinking that it was one of the parents who committed the murders. The entire case is a bit strange. Later they came out with a second movie called “Paradise Lost 2: Revelations” I highly recommend that you watch both movies. They will make you think twice about the death penalty.

Back to the Larry King interview, finally they have come up with new evidence. DNA that is not linked to any of the three young men convicted of the murders. Hopefully, they will find the true killer or killer’s of the three little boys who did not disserve to die is such a horrific way and Damien, Jason and Jessie can regain their freedom.

Here are some ways that you can help and information on the case:

The WM3 official site

Link for banners to put on your blog

Links to the victims’

West Memphis Three on YouTube

A news article I found on CFS and FM and other vitamin info

This morning while looking for news articles on CFS and FM, I ran across an article on the use of magnesium for muscle spasms. I have been taking magnesium since I had my thyroid removed due to cancer. The magnesium has nothing to do with the thyroid or lack of but, when my thyroid was removed my parathyroid completely quit working. This only happens in 1 – 3% of thyroidectomy patients. I am not very good with percentages, when I went in for my thyroid biopsy; the doctor doing the biopsy told me “don’t worry, less than 5% of these ever come back anything.” Turns out I had follicular thyroid cancer.

Back to the article...it talks about magnesium being a natural muscle relaxer, that it can increase energy. I have been out of my magnesium for about a week and my muscle spasms have been raging! Not to mention my fibro pain and most of the time it is not that bad. Not that I don’t hurt, mine is more being sensitive to the touch rather than overall widespread pain. I am more CFS than FM, so I can not attest to magnesium and energy…I have none.

magnesium

Another good thing about magnesium is, depending on the form, is a great laxative (and is not cramping like some over the counter laxatives)! If you have chronic constipation the “magnesium citrate” is the laxative form. My favorite citrate brand, which I learned about from my doctor, is the “Rexall” brand. I have not been able to find this one in months; I used to be able to find it at Walmart in the vitamin section. I am now taking the “NOW” brand, it has the; oxide, citrate and asparate forms in it. The article says that magnesium glycinate and magnesium aspartate is the best forms for fibromyalgia. Magnesium, calcium and D work together, without one the other does not work as well.

Now about the parathyroid, your parathyroid regulates calcium in the body. Since mine no longer works, I have to take calcium, magnesium, prescription vitamin D (which is normally formed in the liver) and Calcitriol (which is normally formed in the kidneys). For me not having a working parathyroid working is much worse than not having a thyroid. The lack of my parathyroid was noticeable immediately after my thyroidectomy surgery. The day after surgery, I woke up to my hands seizing up, numb hands and feet, my lip and face twitching along with other muscles twitching. Then once I was able to eat, I started noticing that my throat would close up (just not want to work) while eating along with terrible hiccups! Until I started on all of the above listed medications, things were really terrible. Some of this still happens every once and a while but, nothing like it was.

If you want to learn more about vitamins, two of my favorite books are; Vitamin Bible and Herb Bible, by Dr. Earl Mindell. I have a few others that I will post later.

New interesting tool that I found on Fibrant Living

This morning while I was checking back on my recently added Fibro link Fibrant Living, I noticed the newest post. The post was about Curehunter.com, and had this enbed on it.

It is a visual medical dictionary! You can also, search medications. Being a very visual person, I just love this. I hope that you will find this helpful too.

Go to Curehunter.com and click on the "dictionary" tab to search for your disease or disorder and get your own enbed. You can also, search information on diseases on the "search" tab.

Off Topic

This is off topic but, I thought that it was worth sharing. A friend of my recently emailed this to me.

Should children witness childbirth?

Due to a power outage, only one paramedic responded to the call. The house was very dark so the paramedic asked Kathleen, a 3-yr old girl to hold a flashlight high over her mommy so he could see while he helped deliver the baby. Very diligently, Kathleen did as she was asked. Heidi pushed and pushed and after a little while, Connor was born. The paramedic lifted him by his little feet and spanked him on his bottom. Connor began to cry. The paramedic then thanked Kathleen for her help and asked the wide-eyed 3-yr old what she thought about what she had just witnessed. Kathleen quickly responded, "He shouldn't have crawled in there in the first place......spank him again!"

If you don't laugh at this one, there's no hope